Thursday, February 23, 2012

Old Horses; Young Students

They look a little like they have already been put out to pasture! Very cute!

I love kids' art, so to go along with my Counting Horses book, and the 'What do Horses Do' smartboard activity, I found a cute horse project ( 'Foot Print Horse' by Busy Bee Kids Craft). Essentially, the kids trace their shoe on brown paper, cut it out, embellish it with eyes, ears, nose, and mane, and Presto! You have a horse.

Tracing shoe--notice iPad with Pictello running.

I made a communication board to go with this (the kids, although they could talk, needed visual cues to ask for essentials such as glue). I also used an iPad app called Pictello for sequencing directions. Although it has text to speech, I turned the volume off for them to read the directions or verbally describe the sequence pictures.

Here is a link to the sequenced picture directions in pdf format. These are photos and written directions taken straight from Pictello. If you have an iPad, consider purchasing this app. I've loved it!

I love the sparseness of the mane.

So just to rehash---I have three items in the 'Horse Unit' as mentioned in the first paragraph---a book, a Smartboard activity, and a craft. I know most of the world seems to be into Dr Seuss at the moment, but for spring, this might be a nice diversion! This craft was great for requesting materials, following sequenced directions, and reviewing horse actions (We watched the Smartboard horse action videos afterwards--although I don't have a Smartboard in my room. We just watched them on my laptop.)

My twins always wanted a pony for our backyard! That thought just randomly popped into my head.
Good night everyone!